Review – Taco Bell Bellhedz Toys
Since one of the important guidelines behind www,battlegrip.com is reviewing any toy that interests me — from designer toys like Boba DEF (review here) to 7-11 cups and toys from Terminator Salvation (review here) — it felt important that I review Taco Bell’s first attempt at cashing in on the “urban vinyl” toy movement. How did they do? Not very well at all if you ask hardcore designer toy collectors.
But rather than listen to the online noise, let’s take a look at these guys and decide for ourselves what we think of Taco Bell’s new Bellhedz toys.
Advertising
I know that I don’t usually look at a toy’s advertising when writing a review but Taco Bell’s Bellhedz advertising — photo above is the poster hanging in Taco Bell right now — is one of the more recognizable pieces that Kidrobot fans are gathering around. It’s become such a central focus of the uproar that Kidrobot even went so far as to create their own parody of the image using their Dunny toy to illustrate just how much the Taco Bell toys resemble the Kidrobot toys.
It looks to me like Kidrobot is taking full advantage of the situation and turning it into a PR event; a chance for the “little guy” to get some press and their name next to a large, well-established brand.
Packaging
One of the major areas in which Kidrobot fans are claiming that Taco Bell ripped off the Dunny is in the design of the Bellhedz box. It’s very similar, yes, but maybe not so similar that I’d call it a blatant theft of existing work. Inspired by, definitely, but nowhere near a detail by detail exact copy of the Dunny packaging.
It’s a cheap box meant to be tossed. It’s not beautiful design, but it does show all 32 designs available in this first wave of Bellhedz toys so that makes it a useful piece for anyone attempting to collect the set.
First slight difference between the Dunny and Bellhedz? There are no mystery chase figures in the Bellhedz series. I’m not 100% certain, but I think every Dunny series includes some mystery figures that are not shown on the box.
Not that this difference is really all that important.
Bellhedz Are Vinyl?
For using the word “vinyl” in their advertising I was a bit shocked when I opened up the box and found that these are not, in fact, vinyl. These are a hard plastic and, according to this entry at Wikipedia, are actually ABS. Currently the entry is marked for deletion so I’m pasting the relevant text below:
“BellHedz are designer toy style figures made of ABS that are current (Sept 09) Kid’s Meal premiums for the Taco Bell fast food chain. There are 32 different designs and each figure has 3 movable joints. The BellHedz were released in September 2009 and they stand around 3 inches tall. They are a blind box toy, meaning that you don’t know what design you will get until you open the package, and can be seen as Collectables.”
Regardless of the exact type of plastic used, the fact that these aren’t vinyl — when the advertising claims they are vinyl — shows that those in charge of this promotion were attempting to capitalize on the “urban vinyl” movement without understanding what they hell they were even looking at. I’m betting some executive ran across a copy of Dot Dot Dash or I Am Plastic and everything went downhill from there.
Enough Complaining, Let’s Look at the Toy
Standing about 3-inches tall, the Bellhedz are a platform toy with a one-piece body and a separate, articulated bell-shaped head. The body feels solid, and shows clear mold lines around the sides, while the head is hollow and also has a seam down the side and top of the head. For $1 these aren’t at all bad toys, but I would have rather paid another $1 and had the arms also be articulated.
As a platform toy the Bellhedz fully embrace the idea of one sculpt, many paint designs, even if there are actually only eight different designs and each one has four different color schemes. It’s an easy way to bulk up the total number of designs — paying for eight designs with four colors each takes a lot less time and money than over thirty original designs — but it feels pretty lame when you buy five toys and only get three completely different designs.
The paint on each toy is sharp, clean, and definitely applied with a silkscreen method and not individually painted by hand. They look pretty good, even if the plastic feels terrible, but there’s not a lot of real excitement or style in the design. After playing with these I can see why Kidrobot fans are complaining — the designs do feel a bit derivative — but I still don’t understand the level of outrage people are feeling about the entire situation. If anything, designer toy fans should see this series as a possible entry point for new people to get into collecting designer toys. I don’t think Bellhedz are going to damage Kidrobot or Dunny collections in any way.
These are mass-produced toys using cheap plastic and just okay designs, but they’re not nearly as terrible as some of the people online are making them out to be.
Closing Thoughts
When I first heard about Bellhedz it was online while reading about the uproar around how these toys were stealing from Kidrobot. I admitted at the time that it looked sketchy but I wanted to see the toys for myself before passing judgment. Well, now that I’ve got five of them I do not think anyone can deny that Taco Bell has walked over Kidrobot’s Dunny design and packaging, but there’s actually nothing here that makes me think these cheap toys have been worth the “boycott” and rally or the post after post online at blogs and forums.
Bellhedz are derivative, yes, but they’re no more derivative than stuff like The CORPS series of G.I. Joe-like toys. When an idea is successful it is copied. Well, if there was any question about whether or not Kidrobot has been successful I think we have our answer.
They’re cheap toys, priced at $1, and that’s about all that Bellhedz are worth. I expect that over the next few months the complaints will die down and in a year or two these will become collectible.
And, at the very least, $1 Bellhedz have to be the cheapest plastic canvas on the market today. Toy customizers may want to snag a dozen or so of these and get to work customizing them. After all, a lot of times it’s what the artist does with the toy that’s important and not what the base canvas was before the toy was customized.
These are not great, but designer toy fans should buy at least one or two for their collections.
Philip Reed likes that Taco Bell is trying to embrace the designer toy movement, and loves the $1/toy price, but he really wishes that the company would have contacted some artists and not gone with an obviously clueless ad/promotions agency.
I think your review is pretty much on the money. I dont see why there wa sa big uproar about this also. Yes it does remake a successful idea like so many other toys have before. I have a few and thats all I will get. I’m not crazy about them but I have been painting some since for a buck how could you go wrong?
I think they are ugly and cheap-looking with poor design and its annoying they call them vinyl when they are not. I will not be going to Taco Bell for one of these.
Good review.
Also, complaining that these are bad/cheap is like complaining about Happy Meal toys being worse than the “real,” quality toys being sold in stores. Of course they’re bad. They are the dessert to a meal that was bad to begin with.
I love em. I’m one guy away from completing my Taco Bell colored set. I like having them in those colors because it says “Hey! We’re Taco Bell Kid Meal toys!”
Overall a good review. There seems to be 2 sides to this, people that are outraged and people that don’t understand. For me it had nothing to do with the idea of the packaging or the “blind box” as KidRobot stole that idea from Qee’s and Be@rbricks. The figure itself(especially the body) does resemble a Dunny but so do a lot of other new designer toys. My main issue I had with these is as illustrated in the 2 pictures above the artists works are being ripped off. The designs were obviously based on other artists work such as Kathie Olivas, Hula+Huka, MAD and others. This is the main beef I and many other artists/collectors have with this line. If they had used original artwork I wouldn’t have as big of a problem with this.
I think these toys are awesome! I’m excited by the idea that kids will be introduced to UV and bring more momentum to it. Taco Bell is the ONLY restaurant that could pull this off and they did a really good job!
I have 10 of these already,and I think I’m the only one that knows about them where I live.
I’m hoping that they do Halloween glow-in-the-dark versions of these toys in time for
October.
TACO BELL BOYCOTT WEEK 3
Congratulations to all of you who continue to join the boycott! As of today, YUM BRANDS stock is down -6.13% since the boycott began. Taco Bell has seen their profits tumble since the boycott began and they will keep going down. During the same time, Del Taco profits have doubled. None of this would have happened if Taco Bell would have done the right thing and apologized and pulled their rip off designs off the shelf. The boycott continues to grow in numbers and more and more customers are switching to Del Taco. Our industry sources tell us that STROTTMAN has been secretly interviewing creative directors from neighboring agencies to replace MIKKO MERONEN. We think this is a good start and a public apology should follow. We will continue to boycott Taco Bell until they remove all Bell Hedz from all locations. Kid Robot’s lawsuit against Taco Bell and STROTTMAN will only get bigger the longer the Bell Hedz are on the shelf. The people have voted with their pocket books. Hopefully the good that will come out of this is that future rip off artists will think twice and not want to join MIKKI MERONEN on the wall of shame.
@Brown Charlie – I’m not sure if a boycott is all that necessary.
I’ve just picked up my 11th one!
This Brown Charlie guy has been posting this same message on every board or blog that has mentioned the BellHedz. I think it’s a spambot. That, and the information seems bogus. If anything, Taco Bell has been doing really well this season. I know a lot of people on boards everywhere who have been going there since the whole boycott thing started. The guys from the /toy/ board on 4chan are buying them BECAUSE of the boycott.
I have bought 50 of them. …In other words, I now own 50 toys that I can pitch around, set out at work and not get nervous if somebody comes by, picks one up and starts twisting the head while we talk, versus one “real” designer vinyl toy for the same outlay, which I would then have to keep in a bell jar on the mantlepiece or in a safe deposit box. Scha-wing!